


Saudade

by PoppyAlexander



Series: Road to Home [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Life After the Doctor, Multi, Post The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 14:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At journey's end, after the fall, John and Donna were all each other had. Now settled into an offbeat domestic bliss, they find a visit from an unexpected guest could change everything they thought they knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

> Part One of the "Road to Home" series. John and Donna's story begins in "Date Mates."

To her enormous relief, Donna spotted John coming the other way up Baker Street toward the flat, where they met at the front door to 221B.

“Oh, thank god!” Donna exclaimed, as John hurried forward to relieve some of her burden—three plastic carrier-bags hanging off one arm, and balanced on both of her upturned hands, an enormous aluminum tray covered with foil. “You’re my hero,” she breathed, passing him the groceries and somehow managing not to tip the tray on the pavement.

They exchanged a peck across the lasagna pan.

“Hello, Sweetheart,” she grinned. “How’s your day?”

John produced his house keys and unlocked the door, then stood aside for Donna to go in ahead of him. “The usual,” he replied. “Sutured a carpenter, shouted the same three questions at a deaf old woman about sixty times, then two hours of NHS paperwork to remind me what I miss about the army.”

Donna clucked sympathetically. “Poor you,” she crooned, hefting the aluminum tray onto the kitchen counter. She shrugged out of her coat, tucked her scarf into the sleeve, and passed it to John to hang up. She began rifling through the bags. “Well, I’ve bought you some pasties for your supper—I’ll heat them up before I go—“ she told him, “And a little something to warm you.” At last she laid hands on what she’d been searching for, and with a flourish, she presented John with a bottle of his beloved Macallan whisky.

John’s smile delighted Donna—he worked so hard, and deserved a little something now and again--and she passed the bottle to him. He hefted it in his hand, gratitude obvious in his grinning expression. “You really are a Top Girl, Missus Watson.”

“Who are you telling?” she replied slyly.

*

Donna had turned him down flat the first time John suggested they get married. She said she didn’t want him making big decisions so soon after losing Sherlock, still mired as he was in his grief. Not to mention the recurrence of his PTSD. And to top it off, she said she didn’t want either of them to feel like he was settling for her.

They carried on—best mates—as before, and neither of them mentioned his proposal again until after John had gotten close to four months’ worth of thrice-weekly therapy appointments under his belt. Then one night over a casual fish-and-chips supper, John tried again.

“Donna, let’s get married.”

“Three good reasons,” she challenged.

“Well. . .” he began, “There’s the looming problem of. . .forty.”

“Not me, old man!” she protested; he let that one go by.

“Don’t we laugh together every day?”

“’Course we do—I’m hilarious.”

“I’ve noticed that everyone boasts when they marry their best friend; it’s the marital ideal, I’ve come to think.” He fixed Donna with a steady, wide-open gaze, letting her know he was not joking. “And you and I are best friends, have been for a long while.”

She grinned, tilted her head.

“And I, for one, can’t imagine I will ever meet another person I will love as much.”

Her voice was tender. “It’s a persuasive argument, Doctor Watson,” she allowed.

John remembered once reading in some waiting-room magazine that the secret to a happy marriage was that both partners ought to think it was they who got the better deal. He knew Donna thought she’d be the one marrying up because he was a doctor, but he knew even more certainly that it was really Donna who was way out of John’s league. She was smarter than him by far, kinder, much more fun, and braver than he’d ever hope to be.

 Donna left him hanging only a few seconds before she said, with finality, “All right. Why not?”

That was Friday night; Tuesday lunchtime they walked into the registry office with Donna’s mum and grand-dad. John wore the ash-coloured cashmere jumper from their first date, Donna a jade-green wrap dress and a gardenia in her hair. John gave her his mum’s rings—a narrow gold band and a tiny round diamond in an ornately-carved setting made to fancy it up. A half-hour later, they walked out married.

*

Donna set the oven temperature and lifted John’s pasties from a twine-tied cardboard box—it was beyond her why something as plain and homely as a pasty should be wrapped up like a gift, but that was the way it was in these little shops—and lay them on a small baking sheet. “God I’m going to be late,” she muttered, glancing into the living room at the clock she’d hung above the fireplace. Shortly after moving into John’s Baker Street flat, she’d gotten herself a  job as a Saturday girl (Wednesday through Saturday, actually) at Heal’s and put her employee discount to work redecorating the place, with help from Mrs. Hudson. She’d left Sherlock’s skull on the mantle. The bullet-riddled smiley face on the garish wallpaper, though, was cut down by the painters and framed for the guest bedroom; it was cool—a bit like Banksy, Donna thought—but not so cool she wanted to look at it every day. She let John keep his favourite chair even though it was beaten and bordering on ugly, and he didn’t much mind about the rest—Donna could tell he found some comfort in coming into a home made cheerful by women’s hands. He’d never thought to hang photos on the walls, or change the kitchen linens with the seasons, or even to buy plants.

“I can fix my own food,” John offered as Donna bustled past him toward the bedroom.

“No, no. ’Sall right,” she replied, leaning into the closet to find better shoes. Coming up with a pair of comfortable, flat oxfords, she sighed with both relief and frustration: she’d have to change into trousers.

“What time are they expecting you?” John called. She could hear him fussing in the kitchen, opening a cupboard, filling a glass with water from the tap, opening the oven door.

“Half-seven. Don’t put them in yet;  the oven’s not hot,” she scolded, yanking her dress over her head and tossing it toward the laundry basket. He was like a kid sometimes, impatient and fidgety, looking for something to keep his hands busy.

“Sorry!” He shut the oven door. Donna heard a kitchen chair scrape back, John’s mild “oof” as he lowered himself to sit. The weather had been damp all week and so his leg was bad.

Donna pulled on a plum-coloured jumper and dark jeans, stepped gratefully into the comfortable shoes, such a relief after a day running from the showroom to the back office in kitten heels. She checked her hair in the mirror over the dresser, rubbed her lips together in an effort to spread around what lipstick she had left.

“What’s in the trough?” John asked, nodding toward the aluminum tray as Donna returned to the kitchen.

“Lasagna. I was going to cook one, but then I was looking at recipes online and guess how long it takes?”

John raised his eyebrows.

“Over an hour! I’m a working girl, I ain’t got that kind of time on a weeknight!” Donna exclaimed. She figured the internet must have taken her for a lady of the manor or a Sloane Square yummy-mummy  if it wanted her to spend an hour boiling noodles and stirring tomato sauce. She slid the baking tray with John’s pasties into the oven. “Gwen and Brendan are probably in a sleep-deprived stupor; they won’t mind store-bought.”

“What’s the baby’s name, again?”

“Artemisia.”

John sucked his teeth. “That’s a lot for a small girl to carry.”

“Good luck to her trying to spell it,” Donna agreed. The name was ridiculous; were there no Janes or Henry’s anymore? “I’ve a mind to start calling her Artie. Anyhow, I’m just going to bring the food, offer to throw in a load of wash or summat—God knows Brendan is useless.”

“Ah, now. He’s a new dad, just as much as Gwen’s a new mum.”

“He’s been useless since his own mum was a new mum, I reckon,” Donna grumbled. “Anyway: dish their dinner, rinse their unmentionables, give the baby a quick cuddle. . .I’ll be home before ten.”

She fetched a beribboned, pink gift-bag from a side table in the living room, retrieved her coat from the rack on the landing.

“Those pasties should be ready in ten minutes or so. Careful you don’t burn yourself taking them out.”

“Donna.” But he was smiling.

She pulled oven mitts from a kitchen drawer on her way to fetch the aluminum tray, set them on the counter next to the cooktop.

“Oh, and there’s a DVD in one of those bags, too. Superheroes. Car crashes in space. I think that blonde one you like gets her tits out.”

“You spoil me.”

She checked her purse for her keys, phone, wallet.

“Speaking of babies,” John ventured.

“Won’t know anything until at least next week,” Donna replied, squeezing his arm. “God, is that the time?” She leaned down to kiss his cheek. “Back before you know it.”

*

John had never thought much about whether he wanted children. He hadn’t been officially opposed to the idea, it just wasn’t on the radar. But now Donna’s mates were having them left and right, and of course, her mum’s unsubtle hints about grandchildren were constant background noise since they’d married. So, they’d decided to give it a try—nothing heroic, just the old-fashioned way—for six months, and if it didn’t happen, they’d carry on, and never regret not having given it a chance.

They weren’t having sex any more than usual (Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, and now and then if one of them had sap running), but sex was different when it was more than recreational—and not just because John didn’t have to fiddle with condoms. There was something more profoundly connecting about it; the subliminal idea floating around that what they were doing could result in a new little life emphasized and solidified this partnership they’d undertaken—one for which John was every day grateful. Donna had saved him as surely as Sherlock had, once upon a time. Donna was always a fun girl, and in bed it was no different story—but lately there was a new undertone of (John almost hated to use the word, but it was what fit) sweetness.

So. They were trying. “Not hard.” But John was surprised at how hopeful he’d become. His therapist had often implored him to make sure he always had something to look forward to—Sunday’s football match, the next lunar eclipse, anything—in order to keep him from getting mired inside his own mind. He supposed he had let himself begin to look forward to becoming a father, becoming a family. His chest felt less tight when he let himself imagine it. He could breathe better.

In the first few months after that horrible day when Sherlock fell, after the miserable blur of the morning he was buried, John found himself drawn to any public event where a man could sit in the back row and have a cry without drawing much attention to himself. Getting out of the flat in Baker Street was imperative—five unoccupied minutes there would nearly send him raving—but after a while he could no longer successfully distract himself with drink, or ludicrous comedic films about body-switching or lost weekends, and so John began to crash weddings (not many, and only crowded ones in huge churches) and school graduations (where someone would always say, “You must be Lauren’s dad,” and he always said he was, but that things with Lauren’s mum were tricky so he’d keep himself to himself here in the back). Once, he and Donna—still just mates then—went to see that genius Sir Patrick Stewart playing Lear, and when he cried out at the death of his daughter, Cordelia—“Howl! HOWL!”—John hung his head and shook with barely-stifled sobs. Donna passed him a hankie from her evening bag, and stroked the back of his neck with the cool tips of her fingers.

Sherlock’s death had triggered his PTSD anew, as well. Without warning or provocation, he became furious to the point of wanting to go down the pub to pick a fight. He was insomniac at night, and in daytime hyper-aware, nearly paranoid; anyone John perceived to be lingering too long beside a post box or a car sent him scurrying for cover. When he did sleep, he dreamt of the whistle of incoming mortars, the cracking rat-a-tat of automatic weapons-fire, bodies of boys (not men--not really) exploded, blood and guts absolutely everywhere, and John could find only white cardboard boxes that should have been filled with bandages, but which were always maddeningly, terrifyingly empty.

His leg killed him; he bought a walking stick. He got Ben Harmon to write him a prescription for pain meds—not opiates, but headed that way. He gave Donna his handgun and told her to have her grand-dad lock it up, and not to give it back unless she’d talked to his therapist about it first.

Without Donna to rely on in those mad early months, John was certain he would not have survived it; gun or no gun, he’d have found a way to do away with himself. Donna had always picked up the phone when he called; she’d come by the flat unannounced, wash the dishes, change his bedsheets, put a vase of flowers on the kitchen table; she’d dragged him out to parties with her mates and god, she laughed! It filled the whole room, that laugh of hers.

And now and then, when John had a bit too much whiskey and Stravinsky and cursed the world for having taken Sherlock, and he couldn’t hold back the tears, Donna—by now his wife as well as his best mate--stroked his head and said tender things like, “I’ll never begrudge you missing him.” She meant it, too, bless her. Then John would start to think about all that Donna didn’t even know she was missing, and he wept all the more: grief for the empty places in both their hearts, gratitude for whatever magic it was that tied their hearts to one another.

*

Just as Donna had gathered all her gear, arms loaded, heading for the stairs, the buzzer went.

“Christ! Expecting someone?” she asked, breathless, annoyed.

John shook his head. His phone went and he reached for it, looking at the display.

“I’ll see who it is on my way out.” Donna told him.

She started down the stairs, heard John call out, “Donna—wait!” and the door was opening before she could even reach for it. An improbably tall man, in a camelhair coat with a thistle buttonhole, stood in the doorway. He doffed his hat with outdated, gentlemanly politeness.

“Miss Noble.”

“Mrs. Watson,” Donna corrected. “Is everything all right?” Mycroft Holmes had not shown up unannounced while she’d lived at Baker Street, and from what she’d heard from John, Donna knew it was rarely a good thing when he did.

“Indeed, everything is right as rain,” Mycroft said briskly. He stepped inside the door and motioned up the stairs. “Could we step upstairs a few moments?” He was nearly pushing her backward up the stairs.

“Yeah, fine,” Donna mumbled, puzzling. She moved to kick the door shut only to find Mycroft’s assistant—a blowsy brunette girl who rarely looked up from the screen of her mobile phone—coming in just behind him, deftly avoiding the closing door as she stepped into the foyer.

By the time they’d reached the upstairs landing, John had risen from his seat and now stood in the center of the living room, leaning on his stick. He shook Mycroft’s hand—firmly, once—and looked concerned. Donna set the tray of lasagna on the end table and moved to stand beside John, looped her hand around his elbow protectively.

“I’m sorry to bother you, John.”

“You’re not.”

Mycroft sniffed, half-smiled. He motioned vaguely and his assistant passed him an out-sized manila envelope she was holding.

“I’m sure you’re aware it’s soon to be the third anniversary of Sherlock’s leaving us,” Mycroft began. John hummed grimly; Donna gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. Mycroft was drawing out of the envelope what looked to be a newspaper. “I have here next Sunday’s _Times_.” He didn’t offer any explanation of how he came to have a copy of a newspaper not yet printed or distributed, and Donna and John both knew enough about the strange, buttoned-down Mycroft Holmes that they didn’t ask. “I thought you’d like to see it. There’s a major investigative article, written by a most dedicated, credible reporter—“

“Who you planted,” John interjected.

“—which after exhaustive research and diligent investigative journalism—“

“Which you provided.”

“—has cleared the name of Sherlock Holmes once and for all.”

Donna squeezed John’s arm again, “Ah, see—you were right all along, Sweetheart! Your Sherlock’s going to be vindicated.” Donna reached for the newspaper and held it up in front of them. “It’s wonderful news,” she offered.

John scanned the page. First a great deal about James Moriarty: his background and long list of crimes. Then a lengthy section detailing the truth about Sherlock: that the kidnapped children, subjects of Sherlock’s last case--the case which stirred suspicion Sherlock might, in fact, have been behind every crime he’d ever solved--had been terrorized and tortured into believing Sherlock was some kind of bogeyman, a  rawhead-and-bloodybones who would one day come to murder them in the most craven manner imaginable. This idea had been planted in the children’s heads by someone uniquely skilled at manipulating minds through torture of all kinds—someone quite likely arranged by that demented monster Moriarty as part of his plan to disgrace and ruin Sherlock. Moriarty had succeeded in so doing, marvelously, in the days and weeks before Sherlock’s fall. And the press—vultures that they were—had delighted in the telling of the whole, sordid tale.

“I’ve always known Sherlock wasn’t a fake,” John said, raising his gaze to meet Mycroft’s. “I never believed for a second he was behind any of those crimes.”

“You’ve always been the truest of friends to him, John,” Mycroft said, in that maddeningly mild voice of his.

“Now everyone will know how right you were to believe in him,” Donna offered. She’d watched John struggle with Sherlock’s tarnished legacy almost as much as he’d struggled with the grief of losing him. Perhaps this, at last, could give him some peace.

“Recent polls have told us that the majority of the population remembered the name of Sherlock Holmes. But that fewer than fifteen percent could recall _why_ they remembered the name,” Mycroft half-explained. “The time is right for a public redemption.”

John seemed skeptical. “Well, that’s all very cheering,” he said, tossing the newspaper onto the table beside Donna’s now-tepid (and late) lasagna, “But nothing really changes. It doesn’t bring him back.”

“I’m sorry it took so long to clear his name,” Mycroft offered. “Believe me, I’ve been bothered by it, too.”

John scoffed. “Bothered. You’ve been bothered.” He shook his head. “Sherlock was the greatest mind in generations--and although I don’t know details, I feel absolutely certain he saved your sorry skin more than once--And the fact that he died in disgrace, wearing labels like kidnapper of children, murderer of blind grannies. . .Complete. And utter. Fake.--”

Donna could feel the muscles in John’s arm tensing and she found herself ever-so-quietly saying, “Shh.”

“You’re ‘bothered’ by that,” John finished. “Forgive me if I don’t offer you a drink.”

Mycroft looked chastised.

“John,” he said.

There was a startling scuffle from the bottom of the stairs, near the front door. Multiple footsteps pounding toward them. A young man’s voice—urgent--calling, “Mr. Holmes!” Then Mycroft side-stepped, glancing over his shoulder toward the stairs, and all at once standing there on the landing—with his hat, literally, in his hand—was Sherlock Holmes.

*

Mrs. Hudson had barely been able to contain her delight.

“There’s a young man to see you, Dear.” The hopeful look on her face was heartbreaking. “Says he’s a doctor. Lovely freckles on him.”

John couldn’t imagine. The only doctor he’d lately had much contact with was old Ben Harmon, whose practice John would soon take over. John hadn’t asked the man’s age, but he was retiring, and was clearly past the point in life where that meant bicycling in Ibiza or trekking in Nepal.

“Freckles?” John wondered, under his breath. “Is that the politically correct term nowadays for liver spots?” John struggled to rise from his chair, leaning hard on his stick, and Mrs. Hudson grasped his elbow to help him.

“Not liver spots, no,” came a cheerful voice. Within a half-second he’d arrived on the landing, and here he stood--the Doctor--in the same long, brown coat John had seen in so many of Donna’s photos, with his previously broken nose and his shockingly angular hair.

“Though, at my age. . .” the Doctor went on, cocking his head and half-smiling. He charged at John then, hand outstretched for a shake. “Doctor Watson, I presume! Heard so much about you from Donna. We meet at last.” He beamed. “I’m the Doctor.”

John shook his hand, firmly, once. He gestured to his right side. “Mrs. Hudson.”

“Yes, we met downstairs. I wonder, though, charming lady, if you wouldn’t mind giving us two doctors a few minutes to chat privately?” The Doctor’s smile could have killed at twenty paces, it was so terribly charming.

Mrs. Hudson tried not to look too knowing, gave John an encouraging glance, excused herself, and left.

“I believe your landlady thinks I’m your date,” the Doctor said through his teeth, eyebrows raised.

John motioned for the Doctor to take his chair, then made for the kettle.

“I believe you’re absolutely right. Tea?”

“Thanks. No. I can’t stay.”

John bypassed the kettle, slid open a drawer full of whatnot, and somewhat sheepishly withdrew an old, disused stethoscope.

“Ah,” the Doctor said.

“I very nearly believe it,” John said gently. “But I’m a pragmatist.”

“I understand completely,” the Doctor replied amiably, seeming almost amused. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and tossed his necktie over his shoulder out of the way.

Within a few seconds’ time, John knew it was, in fact, all true. Donna’s friend, the Doctor—no name, just the title—really was a 900-year-old alien with two hearts, who’d been spiriting her around the universe, back and forth in time. Those pictures she’d sent to John’s mobile, the rapturous emails that read like chapters out of _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ , were every word of them true. . .and in nearly every photo, Donna front and center with a beaming, ear-to-ear smile.

“All right, then?” the Doctor asked, friendly as could be.

“I believe you,” John said. He set aside the stethoscope. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask before. “Where’s Donna, then?”

“That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about,” the Doctor intoned, and his face darkened, the smile quickly fading into a tight-lipped grimace.

John sat down.

The Doctor unspooled a tale wherein Donna—John’s dear friend from nearly the first moment of a website blind date, through almost a year of near-daily texts and emails—was not merely the Doctor’s travel companion or assistant. In the Doctor’s tale, Donna was, in fact, the hero. The Doctor went so far as to call her “the most important woman in the universe.” John marveled.

But now, the Doctor explained—though John barely followed the reasons for it—Donna had forgotten. Not just her heroism, but everything about her remarkable travels, her friendship with the Doctor. . .all of it.

“I had to erase her memories of me. If she ever remembers any of it,” the Doctor intoned, “Her mind will burn. And she will die.”

John ignored the insistent whispers of his inner skeptic—so much of what he’d heard from Donna sounded positively ludicrous. A spaceship translating alien languages inside her head. Hang a key on a string around your neck and you’re invisible! The bloody Prime Minister himself an alien! But John had believed her right along, though he wasn’t sure why, and he sure as hell hadn’t breathed a word of it to Sherlock (though now and then he’d thought Sherlock himself being an alien would have explained so much). And now the proof of the whole, fantastic thing was sitting in his parlor with two beating hearts in its chest. So if the Doctor said Donna’s memories could kill her, well then, John could believe that, too.

John poured himself a generous slug of whiskey, gulped it.

“Be careful, there,” the Doctor said mildly, jutting his chin.

John grimaced. “You’d forgive a man a drink when he’s hearing a story like yours, I’m sure.”

“Certainly I would,” the Doctor replied, “But it’s not yet eleven in the morning, Dr. Watson, and the inside of that glass was already wet when you picked it up.”

“Well deduced,” John said, chastised. He set the glass back on the table without finishing it.

“That your computer there?” the Doctor asked, motioning to the laptop sitting open on the desk.

“Yes, it’s—“

Before John got out a full sentence, the Doctor had aimed a slim, pen-like tool with a blue light on the end at the computer’s keyboard. The light emitted a high-pitched whine.

“I’ll need your mobile phone, as well,” the Doctor told him. Not entirely comprehending, John reached into his hip pocket and produced his phone. “Donna can’t come across any of her texts or photos,” the Doctor half-explained.

“But—“ John protested, too late. The Doctor’s little tool whizzed again, and he handed the phone back.

John immediately pulled up his photo gallery: crime scenes, corpses, the back of Sherlock’s neck, Sherlock’s headstone. No more pictures of Donna in flapper gear holding a newspaper from 1926. No more sunsets featuring three suns. No more of those incredible monsters.

“She remembers you, your friendship—just not the things she’s told you about her time with me.”

John felt gut-punched.

“This is tragic,” he murmured, with a sad shake of his head.

“I’m afraid it’s the only way to keep her safe. You’re her best mate--”

“Oh, no,” John protested, slumping against the back of the sofa, “After you, maybe.  God, this is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard of.”

The Doctor pressed on. “Donna adores you. And she’s going to need a friend like you. I hope I can count on you to make sure she never finds out about me.”

John nodded, eyes wide and damp. Donna had been so happy, traveling with the Doctor.

The Doctor clamped a hand on John’s shoulder. “I understand you’ve lost someone, not so long ago.”

“Six weeks,” John confirmed. “Five days, and what? Fourteen hours?”

“Donna’s been very worried about you.”

“She’s a top girl,” John replied. “A great friend.”

The Doctor’s eyes reddened.

“The very best,” he agreed. “Take care of her.”

John nodded again. After a still, silent moment, the Doctor made to leave.

“Don’t suppose you’re looking for company?” John blurted out then, utterly surprising himself, choking out a laugh even as he said it. It was ludicrous.

The Doctor shook his head. “Not this time,” he said, but not unkindly. “Anyway, take it from one who knows. You can’t leave it behind--that empty feeling. That goes with you everywhere.”

John looked down at his feet.

“Still, I had to ask.”

The Doctor stood on the landing, about to descend. He turned back to John and said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Doctor.”

“And I’m sorry for yours, too,” John replied. “Doctor.”

The Doctor went down the stairs, and John finished his whiskey.

*

Donna gasped out loud, clamped both hands over her mouth. She glanced at John; he looked for all the world as if he’d truly seen a ghost—eyes like dinner plates, all the colour drained from his face. He stumbled backward a step or two; his walking stick hit the floor and rolled. John’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.

Donna looked from John to Sherlock—impossibly tall, razor-blade cheekbones, biting his lips—then back to John. Now his face was flushing red, his lips downturned in a scowl, his eyebrows nearly meeting in a V. He yanked his arm back, fist clenched so tight his knuckles were white. John took a great stride forward, toward Sherlock, his balled fist a looming threat. Sherlock drew back ever so slightly, turned his head. Donna thought to shout John’s name, to distract him before the blow landed. She hadn’t even finished drawing breath to speak, but John had taken one more stuttering step forward, and simply crumpled.

Sherlock caught John against his chest, and John’s arms went around Sherlock’s back, clawing, grasping. His knees were weak; Donna could see that Sherlock was holding him upright. John wailed into the lapel of Sherlock’s dark coat. Donna could see his shoulders and back shuddering, heaving; he was crying like a child. Sherlock’s eyes were closed. Donna looked away, at the fireplace, the kitchen doorway, the floor.

She reached back, grasping for something, anything—she felt faint, as if she might fall. And what was that rushing sound in her ears? Oh, right: it was the sound of her life falling apart.

Mycroft’s female assistant--John had told Donna once her name may or may not be Anthea—stopped typing on her phone’s tiny keyboard long enough to lay one hand on Donna’s arm and guide her down into a chair. Donna wanted to put her head between her knees, but settled for resting her elbows on her thighs and dropping her forehead into the palms of her hands. She focused on breathing, afraid she might forget to do so, and listened to the subsiding thunder of blood in her ears.

John had gathered himself enough to stand on his own feet, still holding white-knuckled onto Sherlock’s coatsleeves, and his eyes searched Sherlock’s face. Sherlock smiled just the faintest bit, the corners of his mouth ever-so-slightly upturned. Donna could barely stand to watch them; it was the most miraculous, terrible thing she could imagine happening. Just when it seemed that Sherlock would lean down and kiss her husband’s mouth, Donna’s phone went, startling them all back into reality.

“Shit!” Donna practically shouted. “Gwen and Brendan!” She remembered suddenly that she was wearing her coat, that she had been on her way someplace that had seemed important at the time. Anthea/NotAnthea fished into Donna’s handbag and produced her phone, passed it to another young assistant—male, as angular and pouty-lipped as the female assistant was shapely and heavy-lidded (so that’s how it was with Mycroft Holmes, Donna found herself thinking). His had been the voice shouting for “Mr. Holmes” earlier. Somehow, he managed to juggle both Donna’s mobile and his own, while using just one thumb to type information from her display into his phone.

“Your friends will be seen to,” he told Donna reassuringly, handing her phone back to the girl, who dropped it back in Donna’s purse. He fetched the tray of food, balanced the pink-ribboned gift atop it, and vanished down the stairs.

John’s voice when he spoke was thick with emotion, his throat raw. “Sherlock, this is Donna.”

“How d'you do?” Sherlock asked, polite, but not engaged. His face tilted slightly toward her, his eyebrows went up questioningly, but his gaze never left John’s face.

Donna set her jaw. “Excuse me a minute,” she announced, and walked—though she felt like running—from the living room, down the hallway into their bedroom. She shut the door behind her, paced back and forth by the foot of the bed. She’d always made room in their life for the memory, the echo, the ghost of Sherlock, and she honestly, truly did not mind it. John was widowed, and that was different than if he’d been divorced or had a break-up. She was being what he needed—a steady mate, a reliable and kind friend. Even when they got married, they’d been just mates. But god damn it all. This morning, Sherlock was a ghost. And now he was in their sitting room. Donna found herself wishing John had smashed Sherlock in the face, after all.

Would she have a cry? She looked at herself in the mirror above the dresser, with her trench belted around her waist, scarf hanging limply around her neck, looking for all the world as if she were about to go somewhere. No, she wouldn’t have a cry. She’d go somewhere.

Donna packed a few things into a bag she’d once upon a time bought to haul her trainers to the gym she’d never gotten around to joining. A faded Duran Duran t-shirt and a pair of red leggings from under her pillow, to sleep in. Knickers and bras and shirts enough for a few days. Another pair of jeans. Socks.

Just then the door whispered open and Anthea/NotAnthea glided in, wordlessly handing Donna her toothbrush and make-up bag from the bath.

“Thank you,” Donna said, with true gratitude. It dawned on her that even worse than the walk out of the bedroom to the bath would have been, was going to be the walk out of the flat. What the hell was she going to say? And if John was snuggled up to Sherlock on the sofa she’d bought with her eighteen-fifty-an-hour. . .She understood, but that didn’t make the idea of it cause her heart to ache any less. She felt light-headed again—it was all too surreal—and forced herself to breathe in slowly, deeply, hold it, then blow it out between nearly pursed lips for as long as she could.

The girl stood by, not looking up from her phone.

Donna combed her fingers through her hair, grabbed her overnight bag in a death grip. This was utter madness, but she wasn’t going to complicate it further with a display of jealousy or by making John feel guilty. They’d talk about it soon enough. It would be fine. Of course it would. She bit back a threatening storm of tears, plastered on an overwide smile, and marched out of the bedroom.

John and Sherlock were not cuddled up, thank god, but Sherlock was sitting rather stiffly on the edge of John’s chair, and John stood beside him with his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, pointing at something Sherlock was holding in his hands—a book, photos. Mycroft still stood  in the doorway near the landing, stiff as could be, looking everywhere but at John and Sherlock; the girl slipped around behind Donna to take her place beside him. John stood up with his hands at his sides when Donna approached to kiss his cheek.

“Donna, you don’t have to leave. Stay and let’s talk.” There was an apologetic, chagrined look in his eyes that nearly broke her heart. Donna shook her head.

“I’ll just go to my mum’s for a night or two.” John started to protest but she held up her hand. She smiled, genuinely, but an agony was bubbling up, and she knew she’d have to hurry if she was going to beat it. “John,” she reassured, for the sake of him not feeling that his dream coming true was anything less to her than a joy, “I promise it’s all right.”

She looked at Sherlock; from all she’d heard of him, Donna had never expected him to seem so. . .humble.

“Sweetheart,” she started again, laying her hand on John’s arm. “Your Sherlock’s come home.” She breathed purposely, held herself. “We’re going to be all right.” Her voice broke; she couldn’t stop it. She breathed, looked away, looked back at John, blinked away the tears, forced the smile back into place.

“We’re fine.”

John’s eyes were wet; he looked utterly exhausted. He strode the few steps toward her and wrapped her up in his arms. Donna closed her eyes; she didn’t want to know if Sherlock was watching or not.

John whispered raggedly, “I do so love you, Missus Watson.”

“Love you too, Doctor Watson,” she breathed. They drew back from the embrace. “Call me,” she said, “When you’re ready.”

John nodded.

“Lovely to have met you,” she said to Sherlock, tightly.

“Yes,” he replied mildly, this time actually looking her in the eyes. “You as well.”

Donna thought Sherlock looked a bit like an otter, but with lovely, smooth skin. The shock of thinking something so ridiculous at that moment caught her off guard and she nearly laughed. She squeezed John’s hand one last time, and Mycroft gestured, ladies-first, toward the stairs.

There was a cab waiting for Donna in the street, parked behind a black limousine. The cab driver put her bag in the boot of the cab. Anthea (or not) held open the door and Donna got in. As she smoothed her coat over her lap, she caught sight of Mycroft Holmes emerging from 221B. He was just stepping into his limo; before she could stop herself, Donna burst out of her cab and rushed him.

“You wait just a minute, Mycroft Holmes,” she demanded. He looked flustered, possibly a little afraid.

Donna squared her shoulders, planted her feet. She pointed her finger at Mycroft accusingly. “How long have you known he was coming back?”

Mycroft pursed his lips, looked her in the eye, meaningfully.

Donna slapped him.

“You’ve known all this time that Sherlock was coming back, and you let John—“ she balled her hands into fists. “You let us. . .”

“I had to think of my brother,” Mycroft protested mildly. “I was protecting his life.”

Donna scoffed--“Psh!”--and didn’t move to wipe away the flecks of spittle that landed on Mycroft’s lapel; nor did he. “You don’t care about people, only for how useful they are to you. For your spying. Or whatever it is.”

Donna was fired up now, furious.

“You knew all along he’d come back, and let John think he was dead, and you based the timing of this on a bloody tabloid readers’ poll!”

“It’s the _Times_ ,” Mycroft scolded.

“You’re a beast!” Donna exploded at him. Mycroft’s eyes shifted momentarily toward the window of Donna and John’s flat. Donna lowered her voice. “John made your brother a better person,” she reminded him. “John Watson is the best thing that ever happened to Sherlock, and you kept them apart for three years? You know as well as I do, that did nothing to improve your brother’s life.”

Anthea had stopped her incessant texting; her thumbs hovered above her phone and she stared at Donna, looking amused, perhaps vaguely impressed.

“You monster,” Donna said, as naturally as if it were his name. “We’re trying for a baby.”

Something dawned across Mycroft’s pinched face that made him look almost human.

“I really am sorry, Miss Noble—“

“Missus. Watson.” Donna growled through clenched teeth. She stomped back to the cab and climbed inside. To Donna’s surprise, Mycroft’s pretty assistant got into the cab from the other side.

“Well done, you!” she said admiringly.

“How do you stand him?” Donna huffed. She looked the girl up and down: £200 haircut, beautifully tailored suit, silk stockings, red-soled shoes-- and in each earlobe a clear, flashing diamond the size of a ladybug.

“Nevermind. I know how.”

Donna set her gaze straight ahead. “That man’s got access to more money than there is in the world. It could give a girl an idea.”

Anthea half-smiled. “You and I should have a drink sometime,” she said.

“Yes,” Donna agreed. “Absolutely.”

**Author's Note:**

> "Saudade" is a Portuguese word that indicates a longing for someone that includes a knowledge the person is forever-lost, as well as nostalgia--sometimes even used to describe feelings for someone who is currently present.


End file.
